(GOLD BAR, WA.) -- March was another month where the criminal element and various other miscreants ran around like screaming savages committing all manner of thievery, mayhem and skulduggery.

Yes, if it wasn't for the brave men and women who comprise The Thin Blue Line we'd all be living in sheer anarchy and looking around for the best deal on a pump shotgun (not to mention bars for the windows and Keep Out! signs).

Well, first of all to that 911 thing. This fine publication has been hand selected by the sheriff's office this month to instruct everyone in the proper use of the 911 phone number.

First thing you should know is this. You do not use the 911 number to order hookers and/or dope. That used to be the number you dialed to order that stuff, but they changed it decades ago.

Should you ever try to use that number to order in some dope, somebody will come out there and slap you senseless for being so stupid. And you'll have it coming too. Nobody will feel sorry for you.

Afterwards they'll say stuff about you like, "Whoa. Dude. Did you hear Ralph tried to score some dope by calling 911? They sent out some goons who thumped his brain into jelly with tire irons. Now he just drools a lot and watches cars go by all day on Highway 2."

At any rate, let it be known once and for all that these days you use 911 for ALL Police, Fire or Ambulance calls and that is all. Got it? Think of 911 as your do-it-all Boy Scout pocket knife for police-fire-ambulance action.

DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL

Now, every once in a while there's a John or Jane Doe citizen that "observes a matter that should be addressed by police" but for some reason (understood only by the gods) he or she may struggle with choosing to call 911 and sometimes won't call at all.

So look: don't hesitate! If you see weird stuff goin' down in the hood, stuff that just don't look right (like a naked circus clown walking down the street selling balloons filled with heroin) and other strange stuff that doesn't pass the sniff test, then pick up the freaking phone and call 911.

You know how many scumbags with outstanding warrants on them were collared and thrown into jail just because some guy in his house saw something weird and called 911? Well, we dunno either but it's a lot.

So, as our friends in the county sheriff's office say, "In Snohomish County, 911 is the only telephone number to call to summon law enforcement or to report to law enforcement, regardless of whether the nature of the report is urgent."

Meaning a barking dog or a suspicious person should be reported to 911 just as a burglary would be reported to 911.

Now...if you're reporting a crime where property is damaged or stolen AND there is no known suspect AND the total value does not exceed $5000 AND it is not something in progress or something that occurred within the last few minutes (AND you are not a raving lunatic) then THAT crime may be reported via Internet at mycrimereport.org

Got it? Do we really need to go over this stuff again in the future?

GOLD BAR INCIDENT SUMMARY:

The following are crime-call incidents your local gendarmes documented with a case report (which means nobody just dreamed them up, unlike like some moron bloggers out here in the sticks we know of who publish fake news all the time. This stuff actually happened).

Incidents for which no report was completed are not included here because....well, it's a long story and we don't have much time to go into all that.

Two abandoned vehicles were impounded and three assaults were reported. We dunno who got assaulted or for what. If you send us money we might look it up.

There was one burglary of a storage building. (Seriously, what kind of brainless low-life burgles a storage building? What's he gonna find? Some ratty old furniture nobody would want, old pictures of grandma Sally and a rusty bike or two? Now you know why prisons are full up).

There were three collisions including a hit and run. We assume the hit and run was one not involving a human being otherwise somebody would have called us. There was 1 controlled substance, 2 disturbances of the peace, 1 follow-up on a 2014 theft, 1 fraud, 1 harassment and 4 thefts.

Rural America is just nasty filthy with thieves. It's a plague, like zombies. Hey, if we did what those Middle Eastern countries did with thieves (cut a hand off every time they get caught pilfering something) stealing would go down to zero.

What's a guy gonna do if he gets caught twice and loses both hands? Start stealing with his toes? We think not. (We didn't say it would be a swell idea to actually make that hand-chopper-off thing a punishment for thieves in this country, but you have to admit it would be a super effective solution to the problem).

The gendarmes also served one trespass notice, there were 3 vandalism reports, 1 recovery of a stolen vehicle and 2 warrant arrests.

Up in Index (land of the free, home of the wavy-gravy) they had just one found or suspicious property (??) report and one theft.

One trespass complaint "was addressed just west of town." Go west young man, go west. They don't have a lot of crime in Index because virtually nobody lives there. It's no wonder. The winters up there are god-awful.

You gotta be on some seriously good anti-depressants (or self medicating in other ways) to go through winter after winter up there. You got your forever gray/black skies and dark clouds, pounding sideways rain, lightning, thunder and wind and snow like 9 feet deep. It's nasty stuff. It's the land that time forgot.

You may as well go live in Minnesota. At least there you'll find great beer and some swell restaurants. And a few hot babes as well. Good beer, a hot babe and great eats go a long way toward making a nasty winter tolerable.

It's real pretty in the summer and fall in Index however. (Assuming you don't go postal and do something really strange before summer arrives).

NOW TO THE CHARTS

This is our favorite part. The numbers of incidents you see described above do not always match the numbers shown in the nice color charts at above right in part because of stuff like, a deputy may respond to a suspicious circumstance and later change the type of call to a Sasquatch sighting, for example.

That happens a lot up here in the sticks. Guy thinks he sees a perp going through his stuff in the garage, turns out to be some half crazed, 300-pound, 7-foot tall missing link covered in brown fur.

All these stats can be viewed at Gold Bar city hall if you walk in fully clothed and not acting like a weirdo.